2. It Has One Of The Worst Cutaways In Cinema History
Gareth Edwards has some balls with this film, as only a man so sure of his own treatment of some very beloved source material would do what he has. So picture the scene; you're past the halfway mark in the film and nothing but a fleeting glimpse of the titular lizard has come your way, instead you've had to settle for a few shots of his back-fins cutting through the water from above in a variety of satellite surveillance footage. Cut to Taylor-Johnson's character witnessing one of the two enemy Muto's is wreaking havoc in a Hawaiian airport, tearing through entire aeroplanes one by one, until the flames from a third are blocked from view by a humongous foot landing squarely in shot. We all know what's coming - we've been waiting for it since the start of the film thanks to the hints of monster-on-monster violence that Watanabe's character talks of being sumptuously tantalising. And so the camera pans ever so slowly over a lumbering, positively monstrous - in every sense of the word - body of what is eventually revealed to be Godzilla. We finally get to take in his entire lumbering stature; from the huge stadium-sized hands to his menacing "I got this" expression, the realisation of which with Hollywood's might behind it, is truly is something that'll make anyone for a penchant for large creatures and sci-fi go all rubbery inside. Then it cuts away. It cuts to another scene entirely and we see nothing. Instead we go back to Aaron-Taylor's son asleep on a couch, as he wakes up and we're forced to take in the duel through both him saying "Mommy mommy look! Monsters!" and that of some footage from an edited news report that's playing away in the background. Gareth Edwards is an absolute genius when it comes to visual effects and shot composition, but this withdrawal of a scene that would instantly have made it monster movie of the decade is something that many viewers will never come back from - especially when the exact same thing happens nearer the end of the film when the two go to fight once again.
